Limits on big student-housing units urged

Tuesday

Nov 19, 2013 at 12:01 AM

After more than three months of discussion and debate, the final recommendations of Mayor Walt Maddox’s Student Rental Housing Task Force were unveiled Monday night. The recommendations, if approved by the Tuscaloosa City Council, would limit the location of new rental properties for students and put a moratorium on building student apartment complexes with 200 or more beds.

By Jason MortonStaff Writer | The Tuscaloosa News

After more than three months of discussion and debate, the final recommendations of Mayor Walt Maddox’s Student Rental Housing Task Force were unveiled Monday night. The recommendations, if approved by the Tuscaloosa City Council, would limit the location of new rental properties for students and put a moratorium on building student apartment complexes with 200 or more beds. The list of nine task force suggestions addresses the influx of private student-based housing complexes in the city over the past few years. The list was presented to the Tuscaloosa Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday.The commission voted unanimously to adopt the recommendations, which will go to the City Council today for consideration.“We worked very diligently over the past few months to put together a balanced and fair assessment of the local student rental housing market,” said Bill Wright, a planning and zoning commissioner who also served as chairman of the Student Rental Housing Task Force. “I think (the recommendations) are solid, well thought out ... and I look forward to presenting these recommendations to the City Council.”Maddox formed the task force in June, asking it to address the boom in new student housing developments. The task force’s goal was to develop a series of policies for the City Council to consider.The task force, which eventually grew to 19 members, held its first meeting in August. Over the course of the meetings that followed, it heard from a number of experts and members of the apartment housing community.One report cited data that claimed Tuscaloosa had an overabundance of private student housing complexes. Two apartment complex managers told of the growing struggle in filling their units with students each year. And real estate forecasters, in a study that also will be presented to the City Council today, made predictions indicating the glut of student housing complexes will not stop unless action is taken.“We heard, examined and analyzed current market data that, in our collective judgment, indicates that the current student housing rental market is overbuilt relative to the University (of Alabama)’s on-campus enrollment,” said the task force’s final recommendation report. “More urgent, we saw evidence indicating that the supply of new student bedrooms in the building pipeline for delivery in 2014, 2015 and beyond, relative to UA’s anticipated on-campus enrollment, will introduce even more bedrooms into a market that cannot easily absorb its current supply. This eventually will further widen the gap between the supply and estimated demand of student bedrooms.” The members of the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council already reviewed five of the recommendations in a preliminary report. Only one — the suggestion that rezonings for 200-plus unit complexes gain no consideration by either body until an update of the city’s Comprehensive Plan — was modified by the City Council.Council members voted to extend this moratorium policy suggestion citywide instead of to areas only outside “the box,” as the Housing Task Force recommended. This box was defined by the task force as areas south of the Black Warrior River, north of 15th Street, west of McFarland Boulevard and east of Queen City Avenue.The City Council also may vote to adopt this change into the Task Force’s final list of recommendations.The four new recommendations include protections for historic districts, modifications to the Zoning Ordinance of Tuscaloosa and limitations on where four- and five-bedroom unit complexes can be built.